Five things you didn't know about Julian Alaphilippe, crowned cycling world champion

Twenty-three years since a Frenchman had won this title!

The French Julian Alaphilippe won Sunday at the cycling world championship, on the Imola circuit in Italy.

After a six and a half hour race - 258 kilometers through the rolling countryside of Romagna - Julian Alaphilippe passed the Belgian Wout van Aert and the Swiss Marc Hirschi.

You have to go back to 1997 to see a French jersey, in this case that of Laurent Brochard, appear on the top step of the podium in this competition.

A victory which confirms the extraordinary capacities of the new darling of French cycling, despite a 2020 season deeply shaken by the health crisis.

Temperament, coach, family… Discover five things you didn't know about Julian Alaphilippe. 

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He is hyperactive

"I am generous in the effort, I like to hurt myself", admits the Frenchman, still so tonic at the age of 28.

"I work to channel my ardor. But we don't really change".

His eye is often funny, which becomes even darker with the annoyances, he explains: "I have the joy of living in me."

Those close to him say he is resourceful, clever, joker, but also courageous, tenacious, respectful.

"I received a work-based education, I know that nothing falls from the sky". 

He started his career as a military

Julian, who his father nicknamed "Juju", dropped out of school early.

Apprenticeship contract requires, he worked from 16 to 18 years for a bicycle dealer in Montluçon.

"I liked it, I liked talking about material with customers," he recalls.

He then enlisted as a soldier, in the army cycling team based in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines), in the barracks of the Camp des Loges.

"The army offered me a job paying almost 1,200 euros per month, fed and housed. I signed," said the runner.

It is under the colors close to the military fatigues that he is finally spotted after having had a season marred by problems with cartilage in one knee.

Previously, even his silver medal at the World Junior Cyclo-cross (2010) was not enough to convince recruiters.

Despite his skill as a balancing act on the bike and his devastating punch, long underlined by the former national cyclo-cross trainer Pierre-Yves Chatelon: "Punchers like him, there are not two in France ! "

He is trained by his cousin

In the reserve team of Quick-Step from 2013, he joined the first training the following year.

And was adopted immediately, especially by Mark Cavendish, sensitive like the others to the spontaneity and good humor of the French.

But he keeps the same trainer, his cousin Frank Alaphilippe, a former amateur rider of good level who takes care of him since his beginnings.

Julian knows how to hurt himself in training.

"I did a big 315 kilometer outing, 9.40 am, I wanted to push my limits", he explained in 2016, about his training for the Dean, a year after being revealed by two second places in the Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

But he had to wait until 2018 to win the Flèche and the following year to remove his first "monument" (Milan-Sanremo) before the epic of the 2019 Tour (two stages and 14 days in yellow).

He plays on drums

His father, who died last June, led an orchestra as a drummer in the Allier balls.

Julian did not sacrifice music theory.

“It was even worse than school!” He recalls.

he learned music by ear.

“I played as a drummer, I still play it sometimes,” he says.

"I love music".

The runner from Désertines, a town in Bourbonnais at the gates of Montluçon where he spent most of his youth, admits to needing to unwind on occasion.

"I like music, jokes".

His relaxation is one of the best assets of this kid of the ball.

"My goal, basically, is to make the people around me happy, with simple happiness," he confided before the 2017 Worlds.

He lives near Andorra to improve his pedaling in the mountains

Julian Alaphilippe has settled in the mountains of Andorra since winter 2018-2019.

An ideal setting to improve your performance in the mountains.

There he shares his life with TV consultant Marion Rousse, who describes him as a sensitive and generous man: "What I like most about him is his humility, his way of running and his panache. He is also very simple, he is always open, he gives so much love to everyone. He is a boy who is not stereotypical, he does not necessarily have a speech that he is asked to hold. "

Viewers around the world were sensitive to the tribute paid to his father when he won the second stage of the recent Tour de France in Nice, his only success this year before the World Cup.

In tears, Julian Alaphilippe confessed: "It was him that I thought of when crossing the line."